


The Hedgehog's Dilemma

by luxrva



Category: Little Witch Academia
Genre: Characters Added As They Appear - Freeform, F/F, Paranormal AU, Same For Relationships, University AU, angst is guaranteed, diana just tryin to do ghost stuff, ghost!diana, i like horsies, no sad endings, you know me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-15
Updated: 2021-01-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:06:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28760757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/luxrva/pseuds/luxrva
Summary: Diana Cavendish did not think she was difficult to get along with. She was quiet, cleanly, and respectful. She kept to herself as much as she possibly could and did not interfere with anybody who came near her. She merely stayed in her room, observed others through The Window, and minded her own business.Until Akko Kagari is placed in her room.Akko is everything Diana is--or was--not. She is impulsive, loud, easily excitable and lives in a world that very much does not coincide with Diana’s--literally. She hates studying, loves partying, and is completely unapologetic for her personality and quirks.A story about when life meets afterlife and the two don’t get along… until they do, and the wall between two worlds begins to crumble.
Relationships: Avery/Atsuko "Akko" Kagari, Diana Cavendish/Atsuko "Akko" Kagari
Comments: 35
Kudos: 81





	1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

* * *

`“ _I woke up one morning to know that I had gone,_  
_Finally taken the step and jumped right off the wall._  
_When you come to call on me, that's why my eyes are glazed—_  
_I’ve been with the devil in the devil’s resting place.”_  
**Devil’s Resting Place - LAURA MARLING**`

* * *

The girl who had just come into  _ her  _ room was the loudest, most obnoxious person that Diana had  _ ever  _ had the privilege to  _ never  _ be around in her entire lifetime.

She came in with a bang—a literal bang, because the heavy wooden door of the dorm room hit the wall so hard Diana was afraid it would leave a hole—and a whole armful of cardboard boxes that crashed against the floor faster than Diana could even register what was happening. She shot to her feet from where she’d been sitting on the aged, threadbare mattress that had replaced her own expensive one, brows knitting in confusion as she stared down the newcomer.

“Excuse you,” she blurted, staring in disbelief as the girl huffed and tossed a sack from her shoulder, expensive textbooks spilling onto the thin veil of an excuse for carpet with the carelessness of a toddler. “That was entirely unnecessary.”

“Finally,” the girl breathed, heaving an exaggerated sigh as she threw herself down on what Diana still considered  _ her  _ bed _.  _ “They need an elevator in this place. Four staircases is way too many.”

“That’s my bed,” Diana growled, eyes shifting quickly from the open door to the girl—short, Asian, and grinning through cheeks red with physical effort—and growing more irritated by the second. “And there  _ is  _ an elevator, it’s just on the far wing, if you’d only looked at the map at the entry—”

“Okaa _ san!  _ ” the girl called out, spreading out and bringing her dirty white converse to dig into the mattress in a way that made Diana want to rip her shoes off and throw them out The Window. “I think I’m dying!”

“I’m about to show you what dying feels like if you don’t get your shoes off  _ my  _ bed,” Diana snapped. She made no move, though, and instead backed up to the far wall and folded her arms over her chest, glowering at the new roommate that had come into her room with absolute disregard for basic respect. Why had Bristol given her a roommate, anyway? Her dorm was a single. There was no room. Were they that desperate for extra cash that they had to throw some foreign girl into her room with absolutely no acknowledgement of the previous semester?

“You are not dying,” an older woman snapped, her words stilted and forced through a heavy Japanese accent as she pushed her way through the doorway with an armful of bags that she set gently at the end of the bed. “Don’t be dramatic, Atsuko.  _ Kudesai  _ !” Her eyes shifted to the textbooks littered across the floor. “Pick those up. Do you know how much those cost me?”

Brand new texts, their spines already bent and threatening to break from the negligence of their owner. “Those are expensive. She’s right,” Diana heard herself say, shaking her head in dismay. “And you should always treat works of literacy with much more respect than that. Especially as—” She cocked her head to the side, reading the only title she could see:

_ Introduction to Veterinary Anatomy and Physiology  _ .

“A veterinary student?”

The girl grumbled, hopping to her feet and hastily plucking the texts off the floor only to drop them just as recklessly on the desk. On  _ Diana’s  _ desk. “It’s not like they’re worth anything  _ now  _ , Okasaan,” she said, tugging at the bottom of the  _ shortest  _ pair of red shorts Diana had ever seen. “We’ll sell them back for, like, a hundred yen. A single euro. Twenty American cents. A dead spider’s left--”

“It does not matter how much we will sell them for, Akko. It matters how much I spent for you to have them,” the girl’s mother replied, quickly moving to the desk to straighten the pile and smooth the spines with a soft hand. “And it is  _ very  _ expensive for you to be here, Akko.”

At least  _ somebody  _ had respect for the written word. And, well, for higher knowledge in general.

“Actually, you shouldn’t sell them at all,” Diana was saying before she could stop herself. “They’ll be worth far more to you in the future when you need to recall lessons from the past.”

Akko mumbled something under her breath that Diana couldn’t quite understand. Her mother must have, though, because the scowl that lit her formerly neutral face was immediate.

But the tension didn’t last long, interrupted by a sweating and heaving middle-aged man carrying a stack of boxes that was nearly as tall as the woman.

“It’s cold in here,” he said, his words rushed with exhaustion. He set the boxes down and swiped the back of his hand across his forehead. His English was far more advanced than the girl’s mother, his Asian origin only detectable through a thin accent. “They must keep the air on high. You should mention something, Akko.”

“It’s perfectly temperate,” Diana said, though the family paid no attention.

Diana moved about the room, careful to keep out of the way as she observed the ongoings with both curiosity and irritation. She hadn’t really given the occupancy of her room much thought, but now that she was presented with a roommate—no, an  _ intruder  _ —the idea bothered her  _ very  _ much. She liked her things as they were, even though all her belongings were no longer there, and having somebody in her space was absolutely out of the question.

She folded her arms across her chest in defiance, eyebrows knit together as she shuffled to the far corner to glare on, inwardly cringing at the way the girl’s mother wept into a goodbye hug that lasted entirely too long. There was a lot of what sounded like Japanese—one of the few languages she would never have the opportunity to learn—and she couldn’t stop the tug of anxiety that came with invading privacy. She shouldn’t have been watching, nor should she have even  _ been  _ there, but she had nowhere else to go and so she  _ had  _ to. After all, it was  _ her  _ room.

And she was definitely not keen on sharing it with somebody else. Especially somebody who was already proving herself to be completely uncaring of Diana’s personal space. 

Diana sat down on the bed, letting out a long sigh as she slapped her hands against her thighs and stared at a blank white wall and all the sunbleached squares from prior residents. She’d had nothing hung, because the rules of the residency hall had stated  _ not  _ to, but clearly other students hadn’t cared for the rules or the preservation of a historical building.

The heavy door shut quietly, lock clicking into place, and Diana turned. The girl was alone now, the sounds of her parents' footsteps disappearing into the cadence of others in the hallway, and she stood still for a long moment just staring at the small room, empty save for a few boxes, bags, and Diana. She sighed. It was the first time Diana was able to get a proper look at her: thin, but the lean muscles of her arms and legs gave away years of athleticism. Her long, brunette hair was messy from moving, dark with sweat at the temples, falling in tangles over the front of an old white t-shirt. And her eyes, wide as they moved over every crevice of her new living space, bright red and glistening with wonder equal to a newborn calf.

They fell on where Diana sat on the bed. Diana’s eyes darted away on instinct, fighting the embarrassment that came with being caught staring. It wasn’t like she was trying to be rude. She was just trying to get a look at her new roommate.

In fact, Diana was honestly starting to think that it might be fine. Somebody to keep her company, at least, and something to occupy her time and energy through the near future. It might be interesting to learn more about Japanese culture—after all, she had never been to Japan, had never even left Western Europe—and the very opportunity of furthering her intellect cheered her even the slightest.

Until that girl—that girl with her short red shorts and big red eyes—slapped her smart phone down on the desk and turned on the loudest, most obnoxious music Diana had  _ ever  _ had the misfortune of hearing.

“Bloody hell, turn that off!” Diana blurted. She leapt to her feet, whirling toward Akko. A broad grin had spread across her roommate’s face and she cranked up the volume even higher, walking over to The Window and jerking up the pane so that everybody in the courtyard was subject, too.

Great. Now they would be known as  _ that  _ room. She stared at The Window, watching the curtains sway with the gentle breeze that flowed into the room, and, for the first time, wondered if it was possible to throw herself out a second time.

“This is entirely disrespectful,” Diana said, shifting her attention back to the bass violating her ears. She grumbled to herself as she moved to the desk and stared down at the still lit screen of the phone, at the open Spotify application bearing the name of the assault on her ears:

AKKO’S K-POP JAMS 2020.

She smacked her finger down on the pause button, feeling her skin strike the glass, but nothing happened. She tried again. And again. The music was still there, ricocheting through her head, likely pissing off all their neighbors and every single person just trying to peacefully move in.

And it went on.

All.

Night.

Through the slinging of belongings as the girl unpacked with the vigor of a hyena at a fresh carcass, through the half-assed making of a bed by somebody who had clearly never made a bed in their life, through the plastering of colorful anime posters over every inch of the formerly white walls even though it was  _ clearly  _ against the residence hall regulations--

“That’s against the  _ rules _ ,” she had found herself saying multiple times, her words lighter than air and drifting, unheard, into nothing. “And I’m certainly not okay with this garbage. This looks like a 13-year-old’s dream room.”

Akko ignored her. Instead, she unrolled another poster and pasted it over the single bit of white that remained above the desk. Above  _ Diana’s  _ desk, which was now cluttered with colorful pens, a Macbook covered in stickers just as obnoxious as the posters, and a bunch of random figurines.

“Fine. If you’re going to ignore the rules of the building, you’re going to adhere to mine. First, this music is abhorrent, and I would like to respectfully ask you to either put on headphones or perhaps find something more agreeable and at a lower volume. Second, the desk is for schoolwork, not for whatever,” she waved her hands emphatically at the mess, “ _ this  _ is. Third, the lights are to be out by ten o’clock. My schedule is crucial and I would prefer it not be altered. Fourth, there will be no drugs or alcohol in this room. Fifth, I insist that—”

“This is fucking  _ amazing!  _ ” Akko shrieked, flopping down on the bed and kicking her feet in the air. “No Okaasan. No Otousan. Nobody to tell me what to do. I can’t believe I’ve got a room all to myself!”

“You’re not by yourself,” Diana said, struggling to keep her voice at a normal volume but elevating just enough to be heard over the music. “You have a roommate that cares very much about routine and respect!”

But routine and respect were clearly not on Akko’s agenda, because it was nearly midnight by the time the girl was in the shower, belting out the lyrics of a particularly hyperactive song with all the skill of a tone-deaf mule. 

Meanwhile, Diana had tried everything to get her attention: flipping the lightswitch, flushing the toilet, turning on the faucet,  _ screaming until her throat hurt  _ . But she couldn’t do  _ anything  _ to get her roommate’s attention. Hell, she had even tried  _ staring  _ at the lights to try to force them to flicker with her mind, but all that gave her was the memory of what a headache felt like.

By the time Akko had finally gotten into bed, far later than Diana had deemed acceptable and after playing an extremely loud phone game, Diana had decided that she was going to do whatever she had to do to get this girl out of her room. Snack wrappers and empty pop bottles littered the bedside table even when the garbage bin was mere feet away. Plus, Akko hadn’t dried her feet after her shower and left a trail of wet footprints halfway across the room and had nearly fallen—much to Diana’s disappointment—and  _ still  _ hadn’t seen a problem with it . Diana had even witnessed Akko cough not once but  _ twice  _ without even bothering to cover her mouth.

So Diana sat at the edge of the bed, ignoring the way Akko shivered and tugged her many blankets tighter around her chin with a mumble, and decided was going to make Akko’s life equally miserable. She was not about to spend her afterlife dealing with a roommate who tortured every self-aware moment she had, and she was  _ definitely  _ not going to deal with whatever other horrible habits this girl had.

No, Diana was not going to put up with it. She was going to haunt the bloody hell out of this Akko girl and get her room back, no matter what it took.

She just had to figure out how to do it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> `I had said that I wasn't going to keep working on these pieces. I've changed my mind. Without this fandom, I would not have made the friends that I have, met the girl I'm going to marry, or found a home among people I've (for the most part) never met.`
> 
> `I've still got worlds to visit and stories to tell.`
> 
> `This is a story I was avoiding and--through feedback--the one you all liked the best. I'd say it's time to crack down and bring it on home. For you.`
> 
> `All my best,`
> 
> `Lux.`


	2. The Roommate From Hell

**THE ROOMMATE FROM HELL**

* * *

`"I’m crying out, I’m breaking down.  
 _I am fearing it all,_  
 _Stuck inside these walls._  
 _Tell me there is hope for me._  
 _Is anybody out there listening?”_ ****  
 **I’m In Here - SIA**`

* * *

“Sucy! Lotte!”

The girlish shrieking that accompanied the names that fell from Akko’s lips made Diana pinch the bridge of her nose. She was tired, so tired, and all she wanted to do was rest. She rolled away from the door to stare at one of the anime posters on the wall next to the bed. She had never considered haunting before—well, she’d never had a reason or a person to haunt, honestly—but was proving to be absolutely exhausting.

She’d tried everything. Channeling as much anger and resentment as possible as she smacked her finger again and again against the lightswitch. Forcing direct concentration onto the Macbook power button as Akko watched some cartoon in that was nothing but a lot of noises and extremely loud Japanese chirping. Tugging hard at the open window in an attempt to slam it shut as she tried to recall the happiest moment of her life to try to generate some 

excitement until she realized that she couldn’t _think_ of one that was happy enough.

Nothing worked.

She’d begun to think that it was impossible to communicate with the living at all and was quite sure that haunting was a myth by the time she’d collapsed, spent and frustrated, on the bed that used to be hers.

“Please,” Diana groaned, hating herself while burying her face into Akko’s extremely inappropriate pillowcase of some black-haired, nearly-naked anime girl sprawled out. “Just be quiet for five minutes. Five minutes. That’s all I ask.”

Five minutes was proving far too much of an ask.

“Don’t hug me,” was the other voice—flat and monotone—and the sound of a palm smacking against skin, followed by a disappointed groan from Akko. “I don’t do hugs.”

“Hey, Akko,” came a quiet voice and a sheepish giggle. “You look settled in. Are you ready for classes?”

“No,” Diana said, squeezing her eyes shut. “She’s not. She hasn’t even looked at her syllabus, much less opened a single textbook—”

“Yes! I’m so ready. I can’t wait. I hope university is as fun as orientation was. Where are you two staying? Do you have singles, too?”

Diana rolled over, scowling as she looked at the two new girls in her room. One was short, much shorter than her already height compromised roommate, with messy, tousled ginger hair and glasses thicker than Akko’s skull. The other was a little taller with hair dyed a brilliant shade of lavender that draped across her forehead, concealing half her face but leaving plenty of an extremely unimpressed expression to view. Separately, they seemed far from the type of friends Diana had pictured Akko having. Together, they seemed further from the type of friends Diana had pictured Akko having.

“No,” the taller girl deadpanned, folding her arms across her chest. “Someone put in an application for a double and wrote my name as a roommate request. I don’t even know how they found my last name.”

“Your name tape at orientation said Sucy Manbavaran,” the shorter girl replied, a small smile lighting her freckled face. “I wrote it down! Anyway, we’re on the second floor.”

Sucy blinked, sighing as she stared past Akko. “I am so grateful for your attention to detail and even more grateful for your exorbitant NightFall collection. There is nobody I would rather room with than a NightFall fanatic.”

“I told you I’d loan you the first book if you wanted to get into it,” Lotte said. “They’re such good books, I think you’ll really enjoy—”

“Enjoying is not my specialty. Especially when the enjoyment pertains to garbage.”

“I like you,” Diana said, forcing herself to sit up with a long sigh of effort. “You are absolutely correct. NightFall is a terrible series. Poorly written and catering to readers who have no respect for true literacy. My friend Barbara—”

“How’d you get this room, anyway?” Sucy murmured, walking past Akko and glancing around. “You know some weird chick killed herself in here last semester, right?”

Diana’s eyes narrowed. She glowered at Sucy, feeling her cheeks growing a burning shade of red. “I was wrong. I do not like you. And I did not die _in_ this room, if we are interested in semantics.”

“Wait, really?” Akko cocked her head to the side, wide-eyed as she peered around the room as if she was seeing it for the first time. “Somebody died in here? No wonder the rent was so cheap. My parents thought Bristol was just giving them a great deal. Do you think it’s haunted?”

“It’s about to be,” Diana grumbled. “Once I figure the bloody thing out.”

“Sucy, stop.” Lotte nudged her friend in the side. “She’s making things up, Akko. Nobody died in here. The room isn’t haunted. She’s just trying to get a rise out of you.”

“She’s correct,” Diana said, shifting against the many colorful blankets that littered Akko’s bed. “Like I said, nobody died _in_ here. But it’s definitely haunted.”

Sucy scowled. “I’m not—”

“She’s joking.”

“No she’s not,” Diana said.

Akko laughed. It was nervous, unsure, and she threw a glance at Sucy before shoving her fists into the front pockets of those damned red shorts. “Very funny, Suce.”

“It’s Sucy.”

“Anyway, check this out,” Akko said, ignoring the correction and walking over to The Window. It was wide open, the warm summer air and laughter from students outside drifting into the top-floor room. “I’ve got an _insane_ view. I can see all of the University from here.”

Diana clambered to her feet, swaying under her own exhaustion, to peer over the girls’ shoulders. “You can see all of the _courtyard_ ,” she corrected. “And half the medical building.”

“Whoa,” Lotte said, planting her hands on the windowsill and leaning forward. “You _can_ see everything.”

Diana threw her hands up and stepped back. “Alright. Got it. Everybody’s an imbecile but me.”

“You know that’s not the whole campus, right?” Sucy drawled, turning away from The Window with complete disinterest. “It’s just the courtyard. All you’re going to see is frat boys playing ultimate frisbee.”

“Okay, not everybody,” Diana corrected, stepping up to the slightly shorter girl and peering into her face. One magenta eye, the other, hidden by long bangs, a regular shade of brown. Hm. Heterochromia. Diana vaguely wondered why she kept something so interesting hidden. “But I still don’t like you.”

Lotte had stepped away from The Window and was moving about the room, carefully examining all of Akko’s belongings and putting her hands on anything and everything as though she was completely welcome. And Diana supposed she was, because Akko didn’t say anything at all.

“You have so much cool stuff,” Lotte said, sky blue eyes scanning the posters on the walls from behind her horn-rimmed glasses. “Isn’t it against regulation to put stuff on the walls, though? This is a historical building. I think I remember reading something in the—”

“Nah,” Akko cut in. “I didn’t see anything like that—”

“That’s because you don’t read.” Diana was huffing as she tried to yank on the door knob. Maybe if she slammed the door open, everyone would run out screaming. Then maybe they’d never come back and she’d have peace and quiet forever.

“--besides, isn’t University about expressing your individuality? This room is my home for at least the next year—”

“Nine months,” Sucy said.

“--and I think it’s important for me to enjoy my surroundings—”

“You can enjoy them with white walls,” Diana said through wheezes. The veins on her arms were popping out of her forearms as she pulled.

“--and it’s not like I have a roommate to complain about it or anything—”

Diana fell over backwards and resigned herself to lying on the floor, wondering why in the hell she was sweating when she was nothing more than the spectral remains of her former self. Surely that had to be a mistake, something the developer of the Afterlife--whoever that chav was--had overlooked. Whoever it was, he deserved to be fired. And it was definitely a he, because a she would _not_ have approved sweat. “You have a roommate,” Diana moaned from the floor, feeling the stiff carpet brushing against her cheeks as she flopped over and glared at the three girls. “You just don’t know it. Yet.”

“--and it’s not damaging the walls, so I think it’s perfectly fine.”

Diana sprung to her feet, her energy suddenly renewed as though fueled by complete irritation, and smacked her hands down on the desk. There wasn’t even a thud “They’re thumbtacked to the _wall_ , Akko! Holes are damage!”

Sucy squinted at one of the posters, moving closer to the wall. “But you used thumbtacks,” she muttered. “Those leave holes.”

“Can you like somebody and hate them at the same time?”

“Potato, potato,” Akko said, waving a hand dismissively and rolling her shoulders in a shrug. “I’m sure no one will mind.”

“ _I mind!_ ”

Lotte nodded, as though completely alright with everything that Akko was saying. “Maybe I can hang up a few of my NightFall posters above my bed. I’d love to—”

“If you dare hang that up in our room I will throw you out the window faster than—”

“Okay,” Diana snapped, pushing past the three girls and ignoring the way her arm went through half of Lotte’s body as she made her way to the bathroom. “That is completely unacceptable and your company is no longer welcome.”

“ _Sucy!_ ”

“Eh, you’re right.” A devious smile spread across the taller girl’s lips and she chuckled to herself. “Too soon?”

Akko was staring, dumbfounded. No, Diana decided. Just dumb. “I don’t get it.”

“Nothing,” Lotte and Sucy said in unison.

Diana yanked open the shower curtain--except it didn’t move, didn’t even wave, and with a grumble of exasperation she began pulling on the faucet. Maybe if she could get the water on—

“Anyway,” Lotte chirped, her voice higher and much more nervous than what it had been. “How are things with Avery? Have you seen her yet?”

“Are you even still together?” Sucy drawled. “Because that seemed like a longshot—”

“Yes!” Akko said, ignoring Sucy as a broad grin spread across her face. Diana ignored it, focusing her attention back on the faucet and getting the water on. Maybe she could flood the bathroom. No, she had to be more ambitious. Maybe she could flood the _whole_ room. “We’ve been talking all summer.” Her smile faded. “I haven’t seen her yet, though. I was hoping she’d come over later if she’s not busy.”

“This is absolutely ridiculous,” Diana cursed, backing up to slam her foot into the bath faucet as hard as she could. It didn’t budge, but _God-or-whoever-she-hadn’t-met-yet_ did it hurt like the current place she was in, which she assumed was Hell. “Ouch!” she cried out, hopping around on one foot and letting a slew of curses slip through taut lips. The water hadn’t even turned on. No, nothing happened. The entire room was mocking her. “Who decided sweat _and_ pain was a good idea?”

Speaking of ideas, she had one. If she could feel pain… if she could sweat…

She just had to find something sharp.

Diana whirled on a heel and made her way to Akko’s desk, searching desperately for something to harm herself with. Not that she _wanted_ to--harming herself was something she’d never thought to do, except for… well, that one time, but that didn’t really count because she died—but she had to. If she could sweat, if she could feel pain, then she could—

“I’m surprised she hasn’t come over yet,” Lotte was saying as she sat down on Akko’s bed and eyed the completely inappropriate pillow. “I would’ve thought she’d be over here as soon as she could!”

Diana found a pair of pink scissors that looked like something straight from a toddler’s First Day of School list and made a swipe for them. Maybe she could make herself bleed. She bet if they saw blood falling out of the air, they’d _have_ to be scared. Blood didn’t come from _nowhere,_ right?

Except she couldn’t pick the scissors up. She couldn’t pick a pair of stupid, pink, child-aged scissors up with adult sized hands.

“Bugger this!” she groaned, slamming a closed fist down on the wooden desk in frustration. She turned her gaze to the sky--or the ceiling, really--and squeezed her eyes shut. “Why am I even here?” she moaned. “There’s no purpose to this!”

“--family is here for the week,” Akko was saying. “I guess her family has never been here before.”

“They’re from Canada, right?” Lotte asked. “They’re probably exploring Bristol. It is a really nice city…”

“If you like pollution and people,” Sucy grumbled.

Diana swept her arms across the desk as dramatically as she could, panting heavily in a mixture of irritation and complete disbelief of her circumstances. There she was, dead as a doornail, and she couldn’t even effectively haunt or even _slightly_ spook the people that were in her room. Hell, she couldn’t even move a single…

Had that pen just moved?

Diana blinked, staring at one of Akko’s obnoxious pink gel pens that sat in a pile of other pens beside her MacBook. If she had been paying attention, which she admittedly wasn’t, as her temper had reached quite a peak, she could have been _sure_ that she moved it, but she wasn’t and so she wrapped her arm around the pen and pulled.

It shifted.

Just a little, but it shifted.

“I can do it,” Diana whispered to herself, ignoring the background noise of the three girls talking about things that she didn’t care about in the least. She had just moved a _pen_. Nothing else mattered. This was the accomplishment of her afterlife!

She pulled again, her lips pursing together in focused concentration. It rolled to the side, stopped only by the clip, and landed next to the equally obnoxious purple gel pen. A passive thought crossed her mind that she couldn’t wait for Akko to realize that the professors at Bristol only wanted hand-written assignments in black.

“Oh my God… or whoever,” Diana murmured. She was completely wiped, all of her energy sapped from the deathform that she was encompassing, but she did it again. And again. Every time, she was successful. Every time, the pen moved. Even just a little bit.

“Look at this,” Diana said loudly, moving to the other side of the desk as she looked up at the three girls who were grossly encompassed in a very superficial conversation about whoever Avery was. “Look! Look at this pen. This pen right here.” She jabbed her index finger at it. “It’s moving. All on it’s own. Watch!”

She moved the pen again. It twitched.

They didn’t look.

“ _Look at this bloody pen!_ ” she all but yelled. “I’m haunting you! The room is haunted! Pay attention!”

Again, they didn’t look.

Diana groaned, grabbing the pen and twitching it back and forth as fast as she could, which was about the pace of a snail making its way from London to Berlin with a five pound weight on its shell. “All of you need to look right now. Look at the haunting that’s happening. This pen is moving on its own. No one is moving it. Well, I am, but you clearly don’t know I’m here, so in the logistics of the real world, no one is moving it.”

“Anyway,” Sucy drawled, crossing her arms over her chest and looking straight at Diana. Or through her, really. “I have way more important things to do than be here any longer. Like napping. Or watching paint dry. You two enjoy yourselves.”

“You,” Diana said, straightening and forcing her gaze to meet Sucy’s mismatched eyes. “You can see. Look at this. Look at this bloody pen.” She made it twitch. “Did you see that? You had to have seen that. Tell me you saw that.”

Sucy merely blinked. “Alright,” she muttered. “I’m out.”

“ _I don’t understand why none of you are acknowledging that I am legitimately haunting you right now!_ ” Diana shrieked, throwing herself down on the desk chair that was thankfully pulled out, her shoulders sagging in exhaustion. “The room is haunted,” she moaned, burying her face in her hands. “The room is haunted and nobody even knows it because all I can do is make a bloody pen move a hundredth of a millimeter and I just want to let you know that _I don’t want you here!_ ”

“Let me know when she—”

Lotte froze mid-sentence, her head slowly turning to fall on where Diana was all but hanging off the desk chair. The color drained from her face as she stared, her lips slightly parted, at exactly where she sat.

“I, uh.” Lotte swallowed. “I think I’m gonna come with you, Sucy. I could use something to eat, or—”

“Wait.” Diana’s head snapped up. “You. You can see me. Right? Or you at least know I’m here. Did you see the pen? Did you see what I did with the pen?” She sat up straighter and nudged at the pen, but she was so weak it didn’t even budge. “I swear I had it moving a second ago. It was a thorough haunt. Completely legitimate. Tell me you saw it? Please? Lotte. That’s your name, right? You had to have seen it.”

“Anyway.” Lotte rolled her shoulders back, glancing at Sucy in a way that confirmed to Diana that the girl knew _something_ was going on. “We’ll see you later, Akko.”

Diana watched as they made their way to the door. Her eyes drifted from Akko to Lotte to Sucy and all at once panic rose in her throat. “Wait,” she cried out, struggling to stand but failing completely. “Wait. Please. At least tell her not to play that awful music. If you know I’m here, at least do that. If you can even hear me, which I doubt you can, but good lord if something could just go right—”

“Hey, Akko, I know you didn’t read the regulations and all,” Lotte said hesitantly, her hand falling on the door knob as she and Sucy prepared to leave. Diana could see how white her face was, how she swallowed hard when she said, “Just know that playing music really loud is against the rules. It was alright in orientation and all, but people are trying to study and—”

“Oh. Right, right,” Akko acknowledged, nodding. “Yeah, of course. I’ll remember that. Bye, guys.”

Diana _swore_ that Lotte had looked at her again before leaving. Her heart--did she still have a heart?--was pounding against her ribcage as she watched the two girls leave. She could feel the cold blood racing through the veins of her very dead body, could feel the exhilaration of acknowledgement fueling her energy once more until she was able to stand.

She had… communicated with somebody. With Akko’s friend. Well, she couldn’t be entirely _sure_ , but she had a feeling that Lotte had been privy to what she was saying, or what she was thinking, or what she _wanted_.

Either way, she had told Akko not to play that dreadful music. At least not so loud, anyway.

Even in death, Diana had accomplished something.

* * *

Diana had accomplished nothing.

The music was as loud as ever and even when Diana buried her face under that disgusting pillow she couldn’t escape the obnoxious beat, the pounding bass, the way too upbeat tune.

Akko had not listened at _all._

And so as her roommate sat on her laptop, watching her stupid cartoons and playing a game on her phone, Diana sat next to her. She sat next to Akko and she moved that pen, again and again, until, finally, Akko looked.

“Hm,” Akko mused, a cheeto halfway to her lips dropping onto the desk as she cocked her head to the side. “That was weird.”

“It’s not weird,” Diana said. “I’m haunting you. Watch.” She pushed at the pen again, but no success made her smack the desk and groan out a, “Come on, you just moved a moment ago, I need you to move to show her how badly I want her out of my room!”

“Must be windy,” Akko grunted. She stood, knocking her bag of cheetos over so a bunch of them spilled across a keyboard that probably had a lot of other disgusting things on it, and shut The Window.

“It’s not the wind,” Diana said. She inhaled sharply, her eyes following Akko as she sat back down and ate the cheetos straight off the keyboard, licking her fingers with an obnoxious smack of her lips. “It’s not the wind. It’s a haunt.” She pushed the pen again.

It moved.

Akko wasn’t looking.

“It’s a haunt, I said!”

Again.

Nothing.

“ _I’m bloody haunting you, Akko! Look at this stupid pen and be so afraid that you want to change rooms!_ ”

Akko turned the bag upside down and emptied the crumbs into her mouth.

“That’s absolutely foul,” Diana remarked, narrowing her eyes as she shoved the pen with her index finger. “Disgusting. There is no reason to—”

Akko was licking her index finger and gathering the crumbs from her keyboard.

“I swear to whoever runs this absolutely shameful version of reality—” Diana nearly shouted, rising so fast she slammed her hip against Akko’s desk. She yelped in pain. “Ow, damn you! Whomever you are!” Her hands flew to her hip bone as every single one of those gaudy gel pens flew off the desk and clattered onto the floor.

Akko dropped the bag. She let her hand fall to her lap.

Her eyes turned to the floor and she stared.

Diana stared, too.

“Did I—”

“What the heck,” Akko said.

“Did I do that?” Diana asked, her voice a ghost of a whisper.

Both girls looked at the rainbow of pens on the floor, frozen in time, frozen _together_ , until Akko merely shrugged, said, “Huh, whatever,” and went right back to what she was doing without even picking the pens up—

And Diana pinched the bridge of her nose, walked across the room, and threw herself on top of Akko’s unmade bed with a loud groan that held more frustration than she’d ever felt in her short life.

  
  
  



End file.
